Destruction of Quebec's Economy Continues Under "Nationalist" Legault Government
The Quebec National Assembly resumed its work on January 30. The characteristic feature of this resumption is the squandering of public assets in the service of narrow private interests which form oligopolies and the placing of decision-making solidly in their hands as they continue to usurp natural resources and engage in nation-wrecking. It includes spending nearly $3 billion of public funds for a battery plant that is completely dependent on the ups and downs of the U.S. economy, Biden's "Build Back Better" plan or Trump's "Make America Great Again" plan, both of which feed the U.S. war machine. It also includes further delivering the education and health care sectors to those whose priority is profit-making and introducing arrangements which further remove the citizens and residents from taking decisions which affect their lives.
Pay-the-Rich Schemes in Energy Sector
By March, the Quebec government intends to table a bill to legalize the direct sale of electricity from one company to another, opening the door to the privatization of electricity and Hydro-Québec. Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy Pierre Fitzbiggon wants to amend Quebec's Energy Board Act to allow a company to not only generate electricity for itself, which is already legal, but also to distribute and resell it to customers by using their own private power lines or the ones that belong to Hydro-Québec.
Quebeckers
have always been told that the nationalization of privately-owned
electricity companies 60 years ago was done with the aim of being
"masters in our own house." Today, the government wants to put
the
final nail in the coffin of that Maîtres chez nous
slogan.
Pay-the-rich
schemes have followed one after the other and many all at once,
particularly since the early 1990s, to the detriment of the
people,
society and nation-building. Within this situation, how to
privatize
Hydro-Québec has been a constant interest of the ruling
elites.
Fitzgibbon's argument to justify increased power generation through privately-owned power utilities in Quebec is that "there are not enough megawatts for all the industries" that are setting up shop in Quebec. This includes the 2022-2023 announcements of U.S./south Korean plants for producing battery components for electric vehicles (EVs) in Becancour, Quebec and last September's announcement of the Swedish Northvolt megaplant for assembling batteries for EVs, at McMasterville, 35 kilometres from Montreal.
Although the government claims that regulation of new privatized power utilities will only allow for surpluses to be sold in small quantities, many are pointing out that this in fact opens the floodgates. Fitzgibbon is on the record as saying that "the private sector is more efficient than the state, in general, by definition." Also, the smaller generating stations are precisely how Quebec's hydro reserves are being parceled out to the detriment of nation-building. The Quebec government in 2012 already decided to abandon small scale power plants to private producers "so as to concentrate on bigger projects" which require huge funding.
Returning
Quebec to its economic role of "hewer of wood, drawer of water"
is the
order of the day of the "nationalist" government of the Coalition
Avenir Québec (CAQ). Resources for batteries may have
replaced
wood and water to some extent, but the framing of economic
development
in favour of
narrow private interests engaged in nation-wrecking all over the
world
is evident.
In the name of a "green economy," the government made the largest investment in Quebec's history when it committed to the construction and production of the Northvolt plant in September 2023. It will be 80 per cent financed by the governments of Quebec ($1.37 billion) and Canada ($1.34 billion). Added to this start-up package are "production incentives," to be made available to Northvolt once it is up and running. These incentives represent another $4.6 billion -- a third of which ($1.5 billion) is to be paid by the Quebec government. In total, the bill for the Quebec government could rise to $2.9 billion in public funds over the next few years.
The project is causing a great deal of concern even within the ruling circles because the need for lithium-ion electric batteries is seen as less urgent with the onset of a recession in the U.S. and the lower predictions of sales of EVs. Another reason is Northvolt's subsequent announcement that it is now focusing on sodium-ion batteries for energy storage. In any case, there is widespread opposition from hundreds of citizens, environmental organizations and Indigenous Peoples who point out that a battery plant will contribute to the destruction of already scarce wetlands besides other environmental damage. To avoid holding Environmental Public Hearings (BAPE), the government has modified the criteria so that Northvolt is not subject to it.
Handover of Health and Social Services Sector to Private Interests
Health care
workers
protest Bill 15 outside the Quebec National Assembly, December 2,
2023.
In the health sector, opposition continues to Bill 15, An Act to make the health and social services system more efficient, adopted under a gag order on December 9, 2023, right in the middle of negotiations with public and parapublic sector workers. The 300-page bill tabled by Health Minister Christian Dubé contained 1,180 articles and amended 37 laws. The main aim of the "reform of health care" is to further centralize and privatize all decision-making in this sector through a new agency Santé Québec established by the bill. Dubé asked executives from companies such as IBM Canada, Google Canada, Energir, Accenture, Pharmaprix and KPMG to recommend candidates from their networks to join Santé Québec's Board of Directors as "top guns." The salary of the top gun in charge of the new agency, Santé Québec, has been announced to be $652,050 for his first two years at the head of Santé Québec, making him one of the highest-paid heads of Crown corporations in Quebec.
It is never too late to remind ourselves that at least five of the "top guns" of SCN-Lavalin put in charge of the construction of Montreal's mega-hospitals did jail terms on charges of rigging bids, breach of trust, forging documents, bribery, money-laundering and other illegal means to transfer public funds to private interests.
By establishing Santé Québec as a single employer in the health and social services sector, the Minister of Health is imposing a restructuring of the unions. With the reduction of union certifications from 136 to 4, several union organizations risk simply disappearing. Santé Québec will report to the Minister, not to the National Assembly on behalf of the public. The neo-liberal mantra guiding the government is that to develop society, all the nation's resources must be made available to the narrow private interests which have also usurped the decision-making power. The office of the Premier and his cabinet act to increase police powers to remove barriers to the demands of the narrow private interests while increasing impunity against the peoples. Laws that get passed then give it all a legal stamp. The plunder of public funds by private interests is revealed once again.
Meanwhile,
the irony is that a consultation is underway led by Quebec's
Chief
Electoral Officer aimed at sparking discussion on the issues
facing the
electoral system. However, the 172-page consultation document,
entitled
For a New
Vision of the Electoral Law, contains not a single word
about the crucial problem posed by the Electoral Act and
the process that keeps citizens disempowered. At present the
people
exercise no control over the narrow private interests which have
usurped power. This problem of people's empowerment needs to be
addressed, to develop a new vision of the electoral law.
Government has lost moral authority and legitimacy to govern, given that citizens' rights are subject to limits, workers are considered disposable, and the demands of the rich are guaranteed and subject to no limits. This authority is at odds with the people's plans for a modern Quebec. The massive support of the people of Quebec for the struggle of health and education workers reflects their aspirations for human-centred public health care and education systems.
It is the political struggle of workers and the broad masses of the people from all walks of life that is decisive in changing the direction of the economy and renewing the political process to ensure that it is they who decide on all issues that concern them and affect their daily lives, and to put an end to the squandering of natural and human resources for the benefit of a tiny minority. The Quebec working class opposes the nation-wrecking of the rulers and is organizing its own nation-building project so as to constitute itself the nation and vest sovereignty the people.
This article was published
in
Volume 54 Numbers 1-2 - January - February
2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M5400116.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca